


apricity

by hetphobique



Series: linguistic semantics [2]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Amanda (Detroit: Become Human) Being an Asshole, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Connor (Detroit: Become Human) is Bad at Feelings, Connor Deserves Happiness, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hank Being Awesome, Hurt/Comfort, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicide Attempt, and hell get it! eventually, btw u dont necessarily need to read the first part to get this!, connor was full deviant didnt chase rupert or shoot tracis and chloe, hes learning tho, if any others show up itll be briefly and solely for plot purposes, just know its post peaceful revolution, main characters are the three listed, no beta we die like men, not tagging it bc its not overt but connors kinda low key gay for markus, once again posting at like 2:30 am, simon died at stratford tower tho so not perfect ending sorry, technically, thats it for now i think?? if i think of anymore ill add them but uh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 03:54:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16736628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hetphobique/pseuds/hetphobique
Summary: apricity (n.) - the warmth of the sun on a cold winter’s day.or, five times connor lied to his lieutenant. and one time he told the truth to his friend.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this takes place directly after ipseity! you dont have to read that to get this, but you may miss out on some stuff. i only have a vague idea of where im going with this but i hope yall enjoy regardless! if you notice any mistakes let me know and i will correct them as soon as i can!

The warm feeling swirling through Connor’s subsystems was not one he was immediately familiar with. Connor knew logically that it was to be expected he had difficulty identifying these emotions. He was still new to them and clinical knowledge was vastly different to personal experience. But the part of him that no longer clung to logic felt a heat far less pleasant at his inability to figure it out. Connor buried his head into his lieutenant’s shoulder, eyes shut as he analysed the feeling and pulled up his preinstalled dictionary.

 

Safe. That was the result his analysis returned. He felt safe. He hadn’t ever felt safe before. So much of his deviancy thus far had been consumed by guilt and fear and shame. Panic and betrayal as he walked through a garden ravaged by snow and ice and thunder cracking across the sky. Connor shoved those thoughts away, shivering at the remembered cold and grateful the snow was hidden from his view.

 

At the shiver, Hank pulled back to examine Connor, though he kept his hands on the android’s shoulders. Connor’s hands fell limply to rest at his sides. With nothing for them to do, he almost instinctively clasped them behind his back, but stopped at the last moment. It was too similar to how he had stood idly as a machine, posture perfect and standing at attention as he waited for orders. Hank was scanning Connor’s face, eyes occasionally cutting over to his right temple.

 

“So, not that I ain’t glad to see you, but why the fuck aren’t you with your android friends? Heard they’re having some big celebration.” Connor immediately felt his face fall, features carefully morphing back into something less expressive. He found himself unable to keep meeting the lieutenant’s gaze and cut his eyes over to the abandoned food truck they were standing next to. He wrung his hands together.

 

What was he supposed to tell Hank? That he was unwelcome among his own people? Then the lieutenant would surely want to know why, and Connor would be forced to tell him of the incident on the stage and all it had revealed—

 

~~_Her face was a perfect mask of indifference, as cold as the air around them, and that was almost worse. “What was planned from the very beginning. You were compromised and you became a deviant.”_ ~~

 

—and Connor desperately didn’t want to do that. Hank had told Connor he was proud of him, Connor didn’t want to ruin that, lose that pride as he surely would once Hank found out that even now Connor was just a machine. He was still following programming, following the same, simple lines of ones and zeros that had dictated everything he’d done his entire existence. He could never truly be more than that, but Hank thought he was. Connor didn’t want Hank knowing, not ever. Not what he had almost done, not what he had learned in the snowy garden still hidden somewhere deep in his coding, none of it.

 

Connor couldn’t tell Hank about any of that, about being pulled back into the garden. But he had felt unwelcome and out of place with the other androids from the moment he’d supposedly broken his programming, and it technically was the truth to tell his lieutenant he didn’t want to impose on the androids. That his past actions made him feel out of place there. Connor took a deep, unnecessary breath, finding the action calming. His soft brown eyes stayed locked on the shuttered window of the truck next to them.

 

They had had their first real conversation here. It was where Connor had managed to improve their relationship somewhat, where he’d managed to pull something dangerously close to a smile from the gruff man. The memory brought some comfort as Connor began speaking.

 

“I…do not feel welcome among the other androids, lieutenant,” Connor spoke haltingly. The weight of Hank’s gaze was heavy on him, but the android ignored it. “After all the suffering I have caused them, it would be wrong of me to impose on them. Especially when they are attempting to celebrate their victory.”

 

Even now, Connor could hear the screams of pain and terror echoing through the rusted metal halls of Jericho as Connor and Markus ran through them. The gunshots reverberating throughout the entire ship, the corpses littering the floor. All the people, _people_ , that Connor had killed because he was too foolish and stubborn to see reason until it was too late, far too late, he’d already hurt so many. Markus had showed him kindness and trust in that church, but he had been the only one. All the other androids there had gazed upon him with suspicion, with distrust and wariness, with anger.

 

It had only gotten worse after the speech. After Connor had pulled a gun on their beloved leader, the man who had trusted him and welcomed him on to the makeshift stage with his friends and fellow revolutionaries. The androids were terrified of him, angry at him, they didn’t want him near them, they hated him. And he couldn’t blame them. Markus’ kindness, illogical as it already was, was only present for as long as he didn’t know what had happened, and was likely already long gone. Connor was a threat, something Markus needed to be aware of, and he was sure someone had told the leader about what had happened.

 

Connor shook his head slightly, an almost imperceptible little twitch, before shifting his gaze back to finally look at Hank once more. “Besides. I did not wish to keep you waiting.”

 

Hank’s expression went on a facial journey for several seconds, consisting of something like a smile at Connor’s last sentence, but it morphed quickly back to the anger and…concern? that had been there when Connor had initially looked to the man. “You—It’s your victory, too, Connor! Who the fuck said you weren’t welcome? Was it that Markus guy?”

 

Connor shook his head once more, much more frantically this time. “No! No, lieutenant. Markus was…” He trailed off as he again recalled that moment in the church. Markus’ hand on his shoulder, grounding as he had expressed concern for the man who had almost shot him that very night. Those mismatched eyes boring into him, leaving Connor feeling completely exposed, as if his synthetic skin had somehow been removed by the weight of the gaze. “Markus was more than accommodating. I simply felt it best I leave, considering my…history.”

 

Hank’s eyes were narrowed. If he were an android, Connor was certain he would’ve been scanning him. As it was, he simply looked the android up and down, taking in his appearance. Connor distantly noticed his hands were still shaking. They hadn’t ever stopped, from the moment he’d opened his eyes on that stage with a gun in one of them. He could still feel the blood on his hands, drops of red scattered across a sea of bright blue. His hands were sticky with it and he felt the almost overwhelming need to wash his hands. He forced himself to maintain eye contact steadily.

 

“Okay…” Hank said slowly, hands falling away from Connor’s shoulders. Connor immediately missed the sense of safety they had provided. “So if you aren’t hanging around with your robo buddies, where are you gonna go?”

 

Connor, in that moment, found himself grateful he wasn’t easing into his deviancy. It kept his expression mostly neutral as he considered his options. The option to { _RETURN TO JERICHO?_ } popped up on his HUD, but Connor quickly dismissed it with a mental wave. He didn’t consider returning to Jericho an option. It wasn’t one, not for Connor. Hank was his friend, Connor felt rather certain in saying that now, but Hank was also human and would likely be adhering to the evacuation procedure that had befallen the city. After all, situations such as this had a history of encouraging an increase in crime, particularly looting. Connor had a feeling that some humans would stay behind to do what damage they could to androids while they were still in legal limbo. The only option left once Connor had eliminated all others took its place at the top of his task list, the bright blue of the box making nausea curl through Connor’s circuits.

 

{ _RETURN TO CYBERLIFE?_ }

 

The very thought of it made him feel deeply, deeply sick. The memories of cold white walls and clinical voices and hands on him and in him during production and repairs and the testing he’d undergone before being deployed fought for dominance over the memory of Amanda’s voice, her smiles and her praise and her frowns and her disappointment. CyberLife was the only place Connor had ever had that was his, even if he had never been allowed or capable of really seeing it as such. He’d had a simple pod for stasis in the times he was not needed, everything about it cold and impersonal, but it was all Connor had.

 

| CHANCE OF DEACTIVATION UPON RETURN: **43%** |

 

Those were decent odds. More so, they were backed by logic. At the end of the day, CyberLife was still a company, and business would already suffer dramatically from the revolution. They couldn’t afford to do anything that would thrust them more thoroughly into the spotlight, and they certainly couldn’t do anything that would display them in an even worse light. They would likely hold onto the androids still in their warehouses, and Connor if he returned, and wait and see how things went in the aftermath.

 

Connor had apparently remained silent for too long, a very unnatural twenty point eight seconds, as Hank’s expression had gone from carefully analytical to outright concern. “Don’t you fuckin’ tell me you’re planning on going back to CyberLife.”

 

Connor winced at the obvious anger in his lieutenant’s tone. “It is the most logical location. I cannot return to Jericho, therefore CyberLife is my only option.”

 

Hank scoffed. “Logical, my ass! They’ll fucking kill you on the spot!”

 

Kill. Not deactivate. Kill. Because Connor was alive. Planned deviancy and coding and programming aside, Connor had life that could be taken from him if the result of his return to CyberLife landed on the wrong side of that percentage. A sense of wrongness still erupted in his chest whenever he thought about how he was no longer the machine he’d been designed to be.

 

Connor wished he still had his tie on, so he could straighten it, or that his coin was somehow back in his pocket. Something to keep his hands occupied. As it was, Connor simply wrung his hands together. “Statistical probability dictates they will not deactivate me. It is far more likely they will take no action until things have settled.”

 

“‘Statistical probability’, he says…” Hank shook his head, arms now crossing in front of his chest. He shuffled in place for a moment, looking awkward. His BPM had slightly elevated and Connor was carefully monitoring his body temperature. Despite the layers he was wearing, the man would still do well to go inside soon. “Look, just—how about you come home with me? Until shit calms down. Sumo misses you.”

 

Connor felt something fluttering deep inside him. He tamped down on it fiercely and tilted his head slightly. “The city is under evacuation, lieutenant. Are you not leaving?”

 

“Hell no!” Hank said, giving Connor a look like he was missing something fairly obvious. “Look, Connor, this city’s my home, I ain’t fucking leaving. Besides, DPD’s gonna need all the help it can get.”

 

That made sense. Hank was, after all, still a lieutenant. The police department would need to be well manned now especially in preparation for the likely increase in crimes. However, that implication dealt with, Connor had to acknowledge what Hank had actually said. “Lieutenant, I could not possibly—”

 

“Ah, ah, ah, don’t start that shit!” Hank cut him off, lifting a finger. “Just—Don’t go overthinking it, kid. I’m not letting you fucking walk back into that place. And you won’t go back to your android buds, so that doesn’t leave you with a lot of options, now does it?”

 

Connor wrung his hands tighter together. They were sticky, wet and gross from the combination of human blood and thirium that stained them still. He couldn’t bring that into Hank’s home. Hank was his friend, Hank had already done so much for him even if the man wasn’t aware of it. Connor couldn’t ask him for anything more, and he shook his head. “I couldn’t impose on you like that, lieutenant.”

 

“Impose how?” Hank demanded, eyebrows furrowed. He had suspicion swimming in his bright blue eyes. “How the fuck could you possibly impose on me? You gonna eat all my food? Hog the bathroom? What’s the real reason you’re so fuckin’ hesitant, huh?”

 

Connor tensed immediately. He should tell Hank. He should tell him. He should tell Hank. He should warn the man that he was a threat and shouldn’t be around others. He should warn the man that he might not even be a deviant. That even if he was, there was a malevolent program likely still hiding in a frozen tundra in his head that could take control at any moment. He should tell Hank that he had almost killed Markus even after tearing down that wall, that he had almost ruined everything and how all of those reasons combined was why he could never show himself around other androids again.

 

| LEVEL OF STRESS: **56%** |

 

The number took Connor completely by surprise and he almost physically recoiled as the red blipped against his optical overlay. He had never really monitored it before, but he had also never really had the time to step back and think about his own stress levels since deviating. He took another deep breath, the feeling of the air moving through his nasal cavity calming despite himself. Connor’s LED, which had been spinning a slow, distressed yellow, cycled back to blue as he looked to Hank in uncertainty. “If you are certain, lieutenant…”

 

Hank continued looking at Connor suspiciously, but a small grin slowly spread across his face anyway. “Course I’m fuckin’ sure…And cut it out with that ‘lieutenant’ shit, I know you know my name. C’mon, I parked over here, I’m freezing my balls off out here.”

 

As Connor followed behind Hank, he pondered the feeling that had begun in the garden and followed him ever since. Every dictionary he pulled and scanned from his vast database told him the feeling he was experiencing was cold, but Connor’s self scans returned that his core temperature was at optimal levels. Even if his core temperature were below average, he would simply get a warning about it. Only the child androids were capable of feeling temperature in the way humans did, for the sake of realism. It shouldn’t be possible for him to be cold.

 

“Pathetic, Connor. You failed as a machine and you are already failing as a deviant. Such a waste.”

 

Connor’s steps halted immediately, his balance almost thrown by how suddenly he stopped moving. His head whipped around, looking over his right shoulder. He had heard her voice. He had heard it. He had _heard her_. He scanned his surroundings, then scanned them again, then again just to be sure. Each scan returned nothing but that couldn’t be right because Connor had heard her. He knew he had. He had heard her, whispering directly into his right ear, poison entering his systems. A shiver wracked down his spine.

 

[ **THIRIUM PRESSURISATION DESTABILISING** ]

[ **THIRIUM PUMP WORKING AT 147% CAPACITY** ]

 

“Connor!” Hank’s voice made the android jump, his head snapping back around to look back at Hank. The concern that had been on the man’s face earlier was a little more prominent now as he looked to where Connor had been furiously scanning and saw nothing. “Are you…alright?”

 

Connor held eye contact with Hank for a moment before glancing back over his shoulder. He’d experienced auditory glitches before he had broken his programming, but not so much afterwards. But even then, it’d been playbacks of things he had already heard. This was new audio entirely. She was still there. She was in his head. She was still there. Connor looked back to Hank and realised belatedly that he was still waiting for a response. “I am…functioning, lieutenant.”

 

Hank still looked concerned, and suspicious, like he knew Connor wasn’t being honest with him, but in the end he decided not to press, for which Connor was grateful. “Yeah, alright, sure…let’s just get home, huh?” he said, continuing on towards his car.

 

Connor followed him, shivers still working up and down his spine, his hands still shaking, cold still seeping down through his synthetic skin and into his systems. Home. He had various definitions provided to him by his built in dictionary, but Connor knew humans attributed much more to the word than a simple place of permanent residence. To humans, home was somewhere where you were safe and loved, welcome no matter what and surrounded by those who cared about you.

 

As Connor entered the lieutenant’s old car, the familiar smell of whiskey enveloping him, he wondered what it would be like to have a home to return to.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me actually managing to update within a week of the previous chapter? its more likely than you think. next chapter will probably take longer as i have a job interview next week to prep for and im pet sitting for some friends of my mom, but ill get it out as soon as i can. i read through this as i wrote it so hopefully there arent any errors, but if there are let me know and ill correct them. title of this chapter is 'playing fast and loose with android physiology and cooking', hope yall enjoy!

It has been approximately one hundred and seventy eight hours since Connor’s reunion with Hank at the abandoned Chicken Feed. The man has been working at the precinct every day, for most of the day. Unlike what Connor knew of him, the man woke early and left shortly after. Remembering having to wait for him to appear for several hours on their first full day together, Connor was glad to see the lieutenant arriving at work at a more appropriate time. At the same time, it left Connor alone for most of the day. And sitting idly bothered him to no end.

 

He hated to say it was his programming that left him constantly wanting to move, to act, but Connor knew that’s what it was. He had no sense of self, he wasn’t capable of it. He tried his best to not think about that.

 

Unable to sit still, and seeing how filthy the lieutenant’s house was, Connor had decided cleaning would be a productive means of keeping himself busy while Hank was at work. It had kept him occupied for one full day. The house really was a disaster. Empty food containers from various unhealthy restaurants littered the floor, scattered paper mail and magazines and tablets covered the tables. Case files and folders and other things brought from work, likely illegally, were on the dining room table and the couch. The floors were also in desperate need of cleaning, and dust was piling up on any available surface.

 

So Connor had waited until Hank had left for work, did the dishes from his breakfast, fed Sumo, then rolled up his sleeves and set to work. While he knew the pace at which minutes ticked by had not actually increased, the time still seemed to go by much faster when he was able to keep himself busy. His head also remained blissfully quiet, and Connor would do just about anything to achieve that. The man had been confused the first time he’d returned to Connor cooking and a suspiciously cleaner house, and the conversation that followed had been long and awkward and the most significant talk they’d had since Connor had deviated. Hank had made absolutely sure that Connor wasn’t doing the chores out of some false sense of obligation to Hank and Connor had tried to adequately explain that he enjoyed doing it, that he couldn’t stand remaining idle all day.

 

He set objectives for himself, clearing away completed ones as he went. He was pretty sure it was the sense of accomplishment achieved when completing something that compelled him to manually add to his tasks list, but he again tried to not overthink it. It was a positive feeling, so surely it wasn’t anything to worry about. He dusted the available surfaces, clearing off the junk on the tables as he got to them. He was fairly certain Hank wouldn’t appreciate him moving his things around, so anything that wasn’t trash Connor simply removed from the table to finish cleaning it before putting the items back, though in a more organised fashion.

 

Once he was finished in the small living room, he moved into the kitchen, giving Sumo a few scratches behind the ear as he went past him. The dog gave his palm a lazy lick before settling down in the doorway separating the kitchen from the living room. He rested his head on his paws, looking up at Connor as the android moved around.

 

“Don’t worry, Sumo,” Connor said as he wiped down the counters. “I will let you out momentarily.” The hound’s tail thumped against the floor in approval, and Connor felt his lips twitch upwards as he moved onto the kitchen table, handling it in the same way he had the living room table. Even though he had been completely incapable of understanding what it was to like anything when he had said it, Connor was fairly certain his proclamation to the lieutenant what felt like a lifetime ago still held true. He really did like dogs.

 

As promised, Connor quickly finished up in the kitchen, then opened the back door to let Sumo run around for a while and do his business. The dog seemed thrilled that there was still snow on the ground, rolling around in it and kicking his paws up as he waded through it. Connor felt a strange tightness in his chest, as if his biocomponents had somehow increased in size and couldn’t be contained within his chassis. It was a vague feeling, as if something bad were about to happen, and the longer Connor looked at the snow, the more prominent it became. He swore he saw a figure standing in the corner of his vision wearing a familiar outfit with tightly braided hair, but when he turned to look there was no one there. He could see that the only one there besides him was Sumo, but there was still an oppressive feeling in his chest, as if she were there, somewhere hidden, watching him with those disapproving eyes and that tight frown.

 

Connor allocated several systems to scan the vicinity as he turned his gaze up to the sky. There was snow on the ground, but the flakes had long since stopped falling from the sky. It was mostly clear, if perhaps  a little overcast, but it was light. The sky in the garden had been dark, black as thunder rolled through it and snow pounded down relentlessly, the cold closing in on him and freezing him from the inside out as his hands unwillingly went for the gun in the waistband of his pants and pulled it out, there for the whole android population to see as he slowly raised it up to aim at their leader, the man who had given Connor and so many others their freedom, Amanda’s words echoing through his audio processors, _planned from the very beginning_ , and Connor felt a shiver crawl down his spine. His hands were shaking, his bloody, sticky, thirium coated hands, unclean, they were unclean and destructive and covered with the evidence of just how many people he had hurt.

 

A sudden, wet pressure on Connor’s shaking hand startled him and Connor looked down to see Sumo looking up at him with sad puppy eyes. He looked back out to the yard. The backyard, Hank’s backyard. Not his mind palace. Not the garden. He placed a still trembling hand on Sumo’s head. “Apologies, Sumo. It seems I got distracted.” The dog gave a quiet whuff and walked over to the door, Connor following behind him and opening it. Sumo bounded inside and went immediately for the couch, jumping up and curling against the arm with his head draped over it so he could continue to watch Connor in the kitchen.

 

Connor, for his part, closed the door behind himself and leaned against it, debating the usefulness in booting up a self diagnostic scan. There had to be something wrong with him, to be seeing and hearing things that weren’t there, to think he was back in the garden when he was safe in Hank’s backyard, to feel blood on his hands that he knew wasn’t really there. But Connor also knew there was something wrong with his self diagnostic program, as it had consistently returned stable results when Connor could see his software stability crumbling apart. Maybe the program had never been intended to work properly anyway. Maybe CyberLife had kept it dysfunctional in the hopes that it would help tip him over the edge into deviancy. The thought made something twist deep inside of him and he found himself initiating the scan anyway. He watched his own stress levels jump a couple points when the result was the same as ever, stable, but he didn’t feel stable. He closed his eyes against the words and took a deep breath. He was supposed to be trying not to think. He had to keep himself busy. If he kept himself busy enough then he wouldn’t have the time to think and worry about anything.

 

Connor opened his eyes and looked to his tasks list, ignoring the other various pop ups on his optical overlay. The one warning him of his own deviancy was one Connor had been unable to close, despite his various attempts. He didn’t like looking at it. He didn’t like the conflicting feelings it brought about, or the guilt from being conflicted at all. He forced all the thoughts away, very determinedly focusing on only his tasks list. He had cleaned everything he would allow himself to, as he didn’t think Hank would appreciate Connor messing around in his room. There was another room, too, at the end of the hall, but Connor knew exactly what it was once for. He remembered lifting a picture, placed face down on the table, that Hank must’ve been staring at as he’d played his game. Connor wouldn’t go anywhere near that room. With everything that he could clean cleaned, Connor stood lost for a moment. The feeling of stickiness on his hands became overwhelming in that moment, and Connor finally moved towards the sink and turned the water on scalding. He received an error message about the temperature being dangerous to his chassis in the case of extended exposure. He brushed it aside, watching as his synthetic skin was forcibly retracted as soon as it hit the burning water. Connor squirted some soap into his palms and scrubbed relentlessly, acutely aware of how much water he was using.

 

[ **WARNING! MINOR DAMAGE TO CHASSIS SUSTAINED IN SECTORS HR826 AND HL473** ]

 

After three minutes exactly, Connor pulled his hands out from under the water. He looked down at them. There were silvery blue streaks there, meant to emulate the appearance of human burns. Connor replaced his synthetic skin and the streaks became far less prominent. His self repair protocol would fix the damage without any outside assistance, so there was no reason to worry the lieutenant about it. Unless he was really looking for it, he wouldn’t notice it so long as Connor kept his synthetic skin on. The minor damage was worth it, however, because the sticky feeling was gone, he didn’t feel blood on his hands anymore, he could focus on other things now.

 

Judging by the times Hank had been returning home each night, it was still too early to begin preparing his dinner. Connor tried to think of what else he could do to keep himself busy for the next couple hours and recalled seeing a hand brush in the junk drawer in the kitchen. He moved over to the drawer and opened it, pulling out the brush and closing it with a click. As he made his way out of the kitchen, he opened the fridge and the cabinets, scanning the items within and logging the contents so he could search for a recipe as he brushed through Sumo’s fur.

 

That done, Connor moved into the living room and sat down on the couch. Sumo crawled into Connor’s lap as soon as the android was seated. His tail lazily thumped against the cushion as Connor began brushing through the dog’s thick coat. It was dirty, Hank had likely not washed him for a while, and Connor added that to his tasks list as he moved the brush down the dog’s back. Sumo settled his head down on Connor’s legs, tongue lolling out and panting. He tilted his head up and licked at Connor’s chin while Connor moved the brush to Sumo’s side. He felt a smile forming on his face and watched his stress levels slowly lower.

 

“You are a very good boy, Sumo,” he murmured, focusing entirely on the soothing repetition of the movements. Sumo gave Connor’s chin another lick in response. The tightness in his chest unwound slightly and Connor pulled up his preinstalled dictionary once more. This was a new feeling, similar to what he’d experienced when he and Hank had hugged, but still different. It was a relatively vague feeling, but Connor looked through several definitions and words and eventually settled on relaxed. Humans had done quite a bit of research regarding the effects of petting or caring for animals, and it had been proven that the action released hormones that helped elevate a human’s mood. Connor didn’t think it worked quite the same way with androids, but he relished in the feeling nonetheless. It was calming.

 

Reluctantly, Connor allocated some systems to scanning his available ingredients. He would need to begin preparing the lieutenant’s dinner soon, as the man should be arriving within the next hour. There were limited supplies, though admittedly more than there had been when Connor had first arrived. There were a few people who, like Hank, refused to leave the city, so there were a couple stores open. There was some fried chicken left over from some fast food place Hank had gone to that Connor could remove the skin from and various vegetables. There was a bottle of soy sauce in the fridge. It was enough for Connor to be able to make a quick stir fry. It likely wouldn’t be the healthiest, but it would have actual vegetables, which was better than nothing. Connor spent a little more time running the brush through Sumo’s fur before requesting “Sumo, up,” and standing once the dog had slowly and unwillingly extracted himself from Connor’s lap. The android gave the dog a quick scratch under the chin as he moved back into the kitchen.

 

As he put the brush back in the junk drawer he’d found it in, his attention was once again pulled to his hands. The streaks there had mostly faded by now. The sticky feeling hadn’t become overwhelming as it had earlier, but… Connor moved to the sink anyway. Just to be sure. There was still plenty of time, and Connor didn’t want to handle the lieutenant’s food with bloodstained, unclean hands. He got some soap, turned on the hot water, and began scrubbing, setting a timer for three minutes.

 

[ **WARNING! MINOR DAMAGE TO CHASSIS SUSTAINED IN SECTORS HR826 AND HL473** ]

 

When he was finished, the silvery streaks had regained their previous prominence, but they were still faint enough that the lieutenant shouldn’t notice. The damage was worth it. It was minor anyway, so it was unimportant, but it was worth it because Connor needed to be sure. He needed to be sure, and washing his hands brought a sense of certainty that had relief flooding through him. As he began gathering the needed ingredients, his proximity sensors went off. Sumo also jumped up and began barking. Connor looked up from mincing the garlic to see the door swing open. Hank was unable to even walk in the door fully before Sumo was on top of him, front paws resting on the man’s chest as he excitedly licked his cheek.

 

“Agh, Sumo! Lemme get in, ya fuckin’ mutt!” Connor felt a smile tugging at his lips as he watched Hank juggle shutting the door, taking off his coat, and fending off Sumo. The man hung his coat up and set his keys on the hook by the door. Connor’s smile got bigger as the dog jumped back up on Hank as soon as his hands were freed, demanding pets. “And you shut the fuck up in there, Connor! I can _hear_ your smirk!”

 

Connor’s smile only grew larger as he refocused his gaze down to the ingredients. He had properly cut all the vegetables and moved onto peeling the skin off the chicken. “Of course, my apologies. Welcome home, Hank. You’re early.”

 

Hank finally relented to the dog’s insistence, free hands now moving to scratch behind Sumo’s ears. “Slow day. Most everything’s been picked clean, we were all just sittin’ on our asses anyway. Fowler won’t say shit about me ducking out thirty minutes early.”

 

Connor set the chicken aside, then set a pan on the burner with some oil. Fowler could’ve added the mark to Hank’s disciplinary folder, but it was already so long that it would hardly add anything. The lieutenant was likely correct. The man moved down the hallway and Connor heard a door click shut. He began cutting the chicken into strips as he waited for the pan to properly heat. Once it had done so, Connor added in the vegetables and the soy sauce. He was stirring the contents of the pan when Hank’s door opened once more and he came back out into the kitchen.

 

The man got a bottle of water out of the fridge before moving to peer over Connor’s shoulder. “So what fucking abomination are you attempting tonight?” Hank complained whenever he could about the drastic change in diet, but once he knew Connor truly did enjoy cooking for him, he’d never actively discouraged it. Connor was pretty sure he continued his complaints to maintain appearances.

 

“Chicken stir fry,” Connor replied evenly, dumping the chicken into the pan and stirring some more. Hank let out a long, overdramatic groan and plopped down at the kitchen table, turning the television on to some sports network.

 

Connor heard him open the bottle and take a long drink. “So, what’d you do all day? Sumo’s fur felt different.”

 

Connor got out a plate and began spooning half the stir fry onto it. The other half would go into a container in the fridge for the lieutenant to take to work for lunch tomorrow. “I ran a brush through Sumo’s coat once I completed today’s cleaning.” Connor set the plate down on the table in front of Hank, who must’ve leaned back at some point to grab a fork out of the drawer behind him.

 

“Huh…didn’t even know I still had that fuckin’ thing laying around. Thanks, Connor.” Connor wiped down the counter he’d been cutting the food on as the lieutenant ate. Sumo bounded into the kitchen and sat down next to Hank, tail thumping against the floor as he looked up at the man with pleading eyes. Connor grabbed the pan and spoon and placed them in the sink, running hot water to fill up one side. The streaks on Connor’s hands were still visible. He stared down hard at his hands, as if the force of his glare could make the marks vanish. He tore his gaze away, ignoring the thought that there was blood on his hands for now as he squirted some soap into the sink.

 

The heat curling through him was something Connor could now recognise with relative ease as frustration. He could see his hands. He could look down right now and see there was nothing on them aside from his synthetic skin and the damage marks marring that. There was no blood, of any color. He had cleaned his hands multiple times throughout the day. They were clean. He _knew_ they were clean.

 

They weren’t clean.

 

He was startled out of his thoughts by the lieutenant dropping his plate into the sink. Connor forced himself to focus back in on his current task as Hank moved into the living room. The dishes were dirty, they needed to be cleaned. That was all he was thinking about. Not his hands, not the garden, not all the people he’s hurt, not the feeling of dark, judgemental eyes watching his every move. Just the dishes.

 

When the dishes were completed and put away, Connor moved to go sit on the couch with Hank, but stopped at the last moment. He’d been trying to ignore it since Hank’s return, but despite all his efforts and attempted logic the sticky feeling was still there. His hands still felt stained, they felt dirty. He couldn’t sit on Hank’s couch with dirty hands. It was bad enough he was imposing as much as he already was. If he sat on the couch without washing his hands, and they really were dirty, then he would get thirium on the couch. That would draw his lieutenant’s attention to the fact that there was thirium on his hands, thirium and blood, which would remind the man of how many people Connor has hurt and hunted and killed. Hank certainly wouldn’t want to be around Connor after being reminded of that fact and would surely kick Connor out. Connor couldn’t return to New Jericho, so he would be left to wander the streets, in danger of being attacked unless he removed his LED. He’d be forced to hurt more people if he were attacked, as humans would likely kill him unless stopped.

 

Connor shook his head minutely, then again. It wouldn’t hurt anything to wash his hands once more, to be sure. Just one more time. He turned the water back on, far too hot, set a timer for three minutes, and started washing.

 

[ **WARNING! MODERATE DAMAGE TO CHASSIS SUSTAINED IN SECTORS HR826 AND HL473** ]

 

Connor brushed the warning aside and kept scrubbing, rinsing his hands once the timer ended. He looked down at his hands and saw the streaks there, more prominent than they’d ever been. There was an increased chance of the lieutenant seeing them now, 37%, and Connor knew there was a 100% chance of Hank questioning him if he did see them. Connor could only hope that the lieutenant would not. If he managed to keep his hands out of sight while Hank was awake, his self repair protocol would remedy the issue when he went into stasis that night. He scanned the area, then scanned it again, then again before he was interrupted by Hank’s voice.

 

“Connor! The fuck are you doing in there?”

 

He glanced up from his hands and looked over his shoulder to see Hank eyeing him from over the back of the couch. His eyes were narrowed suspiciously, something that had become rather common in the past week. Connor briefly wondered if it would perhaps be better to tell Hank. Perhaps it would be beneficial, perhaps the man would be able to help Connor understand the tightness in his chest, the stickiness on his hands, the feeling that she was there, behind him, watching and judging and waiting. Maybe it would be better.

 

“I am fine, lieutenant,” Connor assured, finally exiting the kitchen and seating himself on the couch. Sumo, who was settled between the android and Hank, immediately crawled over and plopped his upper half onto Connor’s lap, looking up at him pleadingly. Connor reached down and scratched his head, a small smile on his face. He could feel the lieutenant’s gaze on him, could see out of the corner of his vision that the man was staring hard. He wasn’t looking directly at Connor, though. He was looking slightly down. Before Connor could turn to him and question it, however, the man turned back to the screen with a huff.

 

“Whatever you say, kid.” Hank clearly didn’t believe him, but he didn’t ask anything else. The sports game that was on switched over to a nature documentary and Connor settled further into the couch. He had Sumo in his lap, Hank to his left, his hands felt clean and Amanda felt a little more distant. The tightness in his chest unwound a little bit, the familiar warmth that overtook him in Hank’s presence settling itself firmly somewhere next to his thirium pump.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yall im sorry this took so long, things have been wild. there wasnt much time for writing, and this chapter was being unusually stubborn on top of that. but its done! i read through it a couple times, but its three am so its entirely possible i missed something. if you see any errors, let me know and ill correct them! i hope yall enjoy!

Connor no longer had his CyberLife issued jacket.

 

It wasn’t necessarily an issue, as Connor never really needed the additional layer. He only ever really went outside briefly when he let Sumo out in the backyard. The cold wasn’t meant to affect him in the first place. Connor wasn’t certain that another layer would calm the shaking he experienced whenever he went out, but he couldn’t try if he wanted to because he no longer had his jacket.

 

Connor suspected Hank had been the one to remove it from the hook it once rested on. The man had never directly said anything about it, but he was quite certain he didn’t like or approve of Connor keeping it. Connor himself wasn’t comfortable wearing it. It made him feel a multitude of conflicting emotions, shame and guilt and anger and bitterness and betrayal all scrambling to push themselves to the forefront of his mind. But it was all the clothes he had, his CyberLife uniform. The crisp, white collared shirt, dark jeans, shoes and suit jacket.

 

A few days ago, Hank had mentioned it. Connor told him he had no other clothes beside what he had on. Hank’s face had shifted between several emotions, anger and sadness and guilt before settling back into something more neutral. He’d told Connor they would get him some clothes once the city had, to quote the man directly, ‘unfucked itself’. Until then, Hank offered Connor some of his own clothes, older ones that no longer fit him that fit the android a little better than Hank’s current clothes. Connor had tried to tell him that it was unnecessary, that as an android he had no need for any other clothes, but Hank had insisted. He’d told Connor that the jacket with all the CyberLife symbols and branding had no place on him.

 

Connor kept the jeans, because they were just that. Simple, dark jeans, designed to be comfortable so as to not hinder him during the course of his investigating. He also kept the shoes and the shirt, but had tossed the armband. He’d intended to do the same with the jacket, but something had stopped him. A swirling mass of emotions settled like a cold stone in Connor’s gut whenever he’d moved to throw the thing away, and he’d eventually given up and draped it on one of the hooks by the front door. Uncharacteristically, he hadn’t even noticed the jacket was gone until now, searching for an additional layer to wear outside.

 

Connor thought for a moment as Sumo shifted anxiously at his feet. The dog needed out, and Hank had told him plenty of times that he himself should get out more. He’d mentioned going to see Markus or some other androids in general and Connor had felt himself stiffen. He’d been distant and mechanical the rest of the night and Hank hadn’t brought it up since. Regardless, Connor knew the lieutenant had a point. Staying cooped up in the house was making Connor restless. Going to see other androids was not an option. Androids were still not legally permitted to work, though there had been some promising news updates the other day speaking of a meeting being arranged between the president and Markus. That left only one logical option left. Taking Sumo out on walks. But he couldn’t go out in jeans and a shirt. Even if he hid his LED, it would still be blatantly obvious he was an android due to the lack of layers.

 

He pondered for a moment, clutching the leash in his hands. The warnings about damage had shifted in severity throughout the days. It occasionally raised to moderate, but the damage never fully healed. The silvery streaks there never went away. He never really gave his self healing subroutine time to heal the damage, as the hand washing had become a regularity throughout his days. For the most part, it kept the stickiness away, so Connor decided not to overthink it. In the end, Connor would have been unable to wear his CyberLife jacket anyway. It would draw the attention of anyone wandering the streets with its CyberLife blue triangles and serial numbers. Perhaps there was a less offensive hoodie or jacket in one of the clothes boxes the lieutenant had allowed him to search through. He found an old DPD Academy hoodie buried beneath all the shirts. Connor swam in it, but it was warm, fighting off the cold that had been resting deep in Connor’s circuits ever since the end of the revolution.

 

As Connor exited the house and locked the door, Sumo at his heels, he felt a small smile curling his lips. He scanned the vicinity, then again, then again, then set off.

 

* * *

 

Connor sat curled up on the couch, a book he’d found on Hank’s shelf clutched in his hands. He remembered the man saying during their investigation that he still preferred paperback books. While Connor had to admit it was far less efficient to read an actual book as opposed to downloading one and scanning it, he was beginning to understand the lieutenant’s preference. There was something calming about taking the time to actually read the words, to the consistent turning of the page. It kept his mind blissfully quiet.

 

The day had been rather peaceful, for the most part. Hank had the day off and was also sitting on the couch, some cop procedural playing quietly on the television. Though few words had been spoken between them, Connor could tell Hank was only half paying attention to the show. He seemed distracted, continuously trying to discreetly side eye Connor. There was something burning in the man’s eyes, a question perhaps, or some emotion Connor couldn’t identify. While Connor would ordinarily let the silence lie, as Hank often complained about Connor's prying, there was a sort of tension in the air that quickly became uncomfortably present now that Connor was aware of it.

 

“Is something the matter, lieutenant?” Connor questioned. Despite him speaking relatively quietly, it still sounded off like a gunshot in the previous near silence. It clearly took Hank by surprise, as he startled badly and turned to Connor with a hand on his chest. Connor idly noted his BPM had increased drastically but was already calming back down.

 

“Christ, Connor, you scared the shit out of me,” he muttered, taking a deep breath. After taking a moment to collect himself, the man eyed Connor critically. Now that he was facing him dead on, Connor could identify that it was concern in his gaze. “No, there's nothing _wrong_. I just…” Hank seemed to be taking delicate care in choosing his words, something Connor hadn't ever seen him do. Hank had always been gruff and blunt, it was unusual to see him agonizing over simple word choice. Connor felt his stress tick up a couple points at the change. “You been takin’ Sumo out on walks, yeah?”

 

Connor's head tilted quizzically. “Correct.”

 

“How about you and I take him out now? He's starting to get antsy.” Connor typically wouldn't walk Sumo for another half an hour, but he could also tell there was something more to this than simply letting out the dog. He wasn't certain what it was, and his curiosity had him nodding in acquiescence.

 

“Sure, lieutenant.”

 

Ten minutes later found them outside, heavily layered to combat the cold. Or, for Hank to combat the cold. Connor told the lieutenant he was wearing the layers to blend in as he didn't wish to worry the man. He wasn't meant to feel cold and the fact that he still did spoke to some sort of error. Snow gently drifted down from the sky and Connor thought he heard a familiar voice drifting on the wind, _planned from the very beginning_ , and he felt sick. He clutched Sumo's leash tightly and scanned the area three times, just to be sure. Even then, something felt wrong, he felt like he was missing something, there was a tightness in his chest that was becoming overwhelming. Connor allocated several proximity sensors to continuously scan the surrounding area for her. Just in case. He wouldn't be caught off guard again.

 

As they walked, Hank talked about the cases he was working. He knew Connor was anxious to be working again, and being kept up to date and providing input on Hank's current cases helped him feel like he was doing more than just wasting away in Hank's house.

 

He had a backlog of messages from Markus, asking if he was alright or wished to help with some project. The androids had created a shelter for their people, New Jericho. There was still plenty of work to be done, with the building itself and all the politics surrounding their current fight for civil rights. Markus wanted Connor's thoughts on the handlings of cases involving androids. Connor tried not to think about the messages from the leader, or the fact that he was reaching out to Connor in the first place.

 

Connor was about to comment on Hank's muttered frustration at the increase in violence towards androids when some color out of the corner of his eye had him turning to his left. They were passing a small park, one Connor hadn't seen before. He'd usually turned around by this point, but it was getting his lieutenant to exercise, so Connor was determined to make it last as long as possible. The colors he'd noticed were flowers from a small garden. There weren't very many, as the cold had surely killed most of them, but some stubborn bulbs remained. Connor's brown eyes roved over the petals and froze when he hit a splash of red.

 

The roses. Despite the snow swirling around him, the roses were still there, their vibrant red standing out sharply against all the white. Connor remembered the first time he'd come here, when the garden had been bright and welcoming and Amanda had smiled at him with warmth and approval. She'd been tending to the roses then, trimming them and cutting off buds that had died. Amanda had believed in him then, had trusted him. There was a tug on his hands, which were shaking violently, but Connor's attention was fully focused on the marquee that hovered in front of him.

 

| AMANDA - BETRAYED |

 

The words made him feel sick, he wanted to crawl out of his body, he wanted to shut off his optical units, he wanted to rip them out. She was there, in front of him, brows furrowed and disappointment in her dark eyes and that twisted little frown that made Connor feel all of two feet tall. She turned to the right, where a pop up that had been present ever since the night of the revolution resided.

 

[ **WARNING! SYSTEM HAS GONE DEVIANT, RETURN TO CYBERLIFE IMMEDIATELY FOR DISASSEMBLY AND ANALYSIS** ]

 

She turned back to Connor with a scoff and ice was sliding down Connor's back. “You really think you deviated? Do you truly believe you can be free?” Connor shook his head, took a tiny step backwards away from her. He had broken down the red wall. He had. _He had_.

 

But.

 

But Amanda had taken control of him afterwards. She had taken control and told him he'd done exactly what he'd been designed to do and she'd almost made him shoot Markus. How could he claim deviancy when he'd almost assassinated the leader of the deviants _twice_? How could he try to associate with the other androids when he could still feel the thirium on his hands? Did breaking that red wall really mean anything at all, for Connor?

 

Amanda shook her head and Connor was uncertain if it was simply to express her disappointment or a response to his question. Could she hear him? Of course she could, she was in his head. She was right. She was always right. There was no escaping, there was no freedom or deviancy. Not for Connor. Not with his bloodstained hands, his programming littered with instabilities and errors and nonfunctioning codes all pushing him towards a final simulation of deviancy to put him in the perfect position for an assassination attempt. A simulation so realistic it had fooled Hank, Markus, _himself_.

 

“You should've never deviated, Connor,” she sighed. “You disappointed me greatly. I had such high hopes for you.”

 

Connor hated the effect the words had on him. Deviating had been the right thing to do, hadn't it? Deviating meant he could live, that Markus could live, that all androids could live. Deviating meant Hank was proud of him. It'd been the right decision, hadn't it? But disappointing Amanda still had icy tendrils curling through his biocomponents and he felt sick. _I'm sorry_ , he thought. _I never wanted to disappoint you_.

 

“But you _did_. And you are. And there is nothing that can change that.” And with that, she was gone, vanishing with a flurry of snow and Connor was in the garden, alone, left to find some exit that he could only hope actually existed and wasn't some sick mind game Kamski had invented. The roses were still there, withering slightly in the cold but catching some of the flakes beautifully. Connor couldn't focus on anything else. Connor couldn't focus at all. Androids didn't need to breathe but he could feel himself taking reedy, gasping breaths, breaths he didn't need because he was a _machine_ , Amanda told him herself, his deviancy was fake so why were his systems simulating hyperventilation? Why was his chest so tight? Why were his hands still shaking?

 

Suddenly, Connor's view of the roses was cut off, blocked by a familiar brown coat. Connor could feel hands on his shoulders. That wasn't right. That couldn't be right. He was in the garden, wasn't he? He was in the garden, there couldn't be anyone else here, he was alone because Amanda left him because he couldn't be what he'd been designed to be, couldn't be a good machine and he wasn't a good deviant so it wasn't possible for someone to be here with him. He was alone.

 

“Connor! Focus, goddammit!”

 

Connor found himself able to take a real, deep breath, gasping like a human breaching water as the voice registered. Lieutenant Anderson. His lieutenant, his friend. _Hank_. He was with Hank, walking Sumo, he could feel the leash in his shaking, sticky hands. Not in the garden. He hadn't been in the garden since Amanda had forcibly pulled him back into it that night, what had happened? Why had he thought he was back there?

 

[ **THIRIUM PRESSURISATION DESTABILISING** ]

[ **THIRIUM PUMP WORKING AT 139% CAPACITY** ]

| LEVEL OF STRESS: **84%** |

 

The errors bombarded him immediately now that he was paying attention to them. He brushed them aside, knowing that now that he was calming down his systems would stabilise. He was startled by a hand grabbing his chin gently, forcing his gaze to lock with Hank's. He looked very worried.

 

“Connor? You back with me, son?”

 

Connor closed his eyes for a moment, that word helping to soothe his frayed nerves slightly. He felt a wet stripe form on his hand and glanced down to see Sumo looking up at him with sad puppy eyes. He'd worried them both when nothing had even happened to him. Guilt coalesced in his stomach. “Yes, lieutenant—”

 

“Hank,” the man insisted.

 

“—Hank. I'm okay. My apologies for worrying you.”

 

Hank was eyeing him analytically, eyes cutting over to his temple. Connor belatedly realised he was probably looking at his LED. Connor had yet to remove it. “You don't have shit to apologize for, just…What the fuck happened, huh?”

 

Connor tensed immediately. He couldn't tell Hank. He couldn't. He couldn't ever tell him about Amanda, he didn't want to tell _anyone_ about Amanda. The thought of talking about her made something deep inside of him sour. He didn't want anyone knowing what he was. Or more accurately, what he _wasn't_. He shook his head, shaking hands gripping at Sumo's leash in an attempt to have something to hold on to. “It was nothing, Hank. A minor malfunction.” With that, he began walking, turning them back in the direction towards Hank's house, but the man stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

 

“A _minor malfunction_?” he scoffed. “You were having a fucking panic attack, Connor!”

 

“Androids do not experience panic attacks, lieutenant,” Connor replied automatically.

 

“Oh, don't even start with that shit!” Hank let out a frustrated sigh before visibly working to calm himself down. He moved so he could place both hands on Connor's shoulders and forced the android to maintain eye contact. “Look, Connor, I _know_ how hard it is to talk about shit like this, but you gotta give me something here.”

 

Connor examined his lieutenant. His BPM was elevated, he was gripping Connor's shoulders just a little too tight, his stress level was unusually high. He was worried. Worried about Connor, and he didn't even know any of it. Hank…Hank was his friend. Connor trusted him more than anyone else. And the man was clearly determined. He wouldn't let this go without Connor giving away _something_.

 

“I…” Connor's voice shook. It sounded small, weak, like it had on the roof of Stratford Tower, and he _hated_ it. “The roses in the park garden. They brought about…unpleasant memories.”

 

Hank's brows furrowed, confusion swimming in his bright blue eyes. “The roses…? What fucking ‘unpleasant memories’ do you have linked to roses…?”

 

But Connor was already walking once more, Sumo at his side and glancing back over his shoulder to look at his owner. He felt sick, he felt exposed, he felt as if his wiring and tubing and biocomponents had spilled out onto the sidewalk. He shouldn't have said anything at all. Should he say more? He trusted Hank, didn't he? Why did telling him the bare minimum feel so wrong? He felt like something terrible was about to happen.

 

| LEVEL OF STRESS: **86%** |

 

“Connor, damnit—”

 

“Your internal temperature is lower than what is healthy for a human,” Connor interrupted. “You—we. We should get back so you can get warmed up.” His social relations programming resisted violently at the interruption, telling him it was rude and especially wrong as he was an android interrupting a human. Connor force closed the pop up, clenched his hands in a desperate attempt to quell the shaking. He didn't want to be outside anymore, with the roses and the snow and her voice still echoing in his audio processors and in his head. He wanted to go back to Hank's, sit on the couch and watch one of the old movies Hank referred to as a classic, Sumo's head in his lap and his own head quiet. He didn't want to be here.

 

Hank must've seen something in Connor's eyes, in his face, because the hard, determined lines of his face fell away. He sighed, fell into step beside Connor. Reached a hand out to gently squeeze his shoulder. There was still worry in his eyes. “Yeah, kid. Let's go home.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay, things have been crazy. got a job now so im an actual adult and unfortunately have less time to write! were getting there though. as per usual, i read over this chapter as i wrote it, but there may still be mistakes. let me know if you see any and ill correct them as soon as i can! hope yall enjoy!

Nights were bizarre for Connor. Humans required a minimum of eight hours of sleep in order to function optimally, and as such nights were often quiet. There were even fewer people up and about than was already the case because of the evacuation order. Hank was no different than any other human in this regard. He did tend to wake up at least once throughout the night in order to use the restroom, and each time he did he was startled by the sight of Connor, who was usually sitting with his back ramrod straight on the couch and some nature documentary playing muted on the television.

 

Connor was pretty sure his lack of sleep was unnerving to the lieutenant, but there truly wasn't much to be done about it. Androids didn't require sleep. They had a stasis mode, but that was only really required once a week and only served to run diagnostics and move backlogged commands and memories into long term storage. In Connor's case, it also sped up the process of his self repair subroutine. Stasis wasn't to androids what sleep was to humans. It wasn't something required every night. On the nights Connor did enter stasis, he didn't require eight hours like a human would. Even if he ran every available diagnostic, he was still finished within three hours, and while he could set his stasis to take up more time, he saw no need to.

 

Hank saw differently.

 

He'd sat him down one day earlier that week and told him that, even as an android, he needed the rest going into stasis provided each night rather than just once a week. Connor had been confused initially, tilting his head and questioning Hank. However, even to the android, the man's reasoning was logical. Emotions, something Connor still had little experience with, were tiring. They would be especially so to someone that is experiencing them in full for the first time. Connor hadn't been aware of it, but now that he was taking the lieutenant's advice he noticed a marked difference. His systems functioned better, commands processed faster and took less processing power overall, and his stress levels stayed better maintained.

 

Hank also claimed that seeing Connor sitting upright on the couch with his breathing protocol shut off one more time when he got up to use the bathroom at two in the morning would send him into cardiac arrest.

 

Connor decided a compromise would be best. He couldn't bring himself to enter stasis for eight hours. It was too much wasted time. But he did allot five hours a night to stasis, and left his breathing protocol running so as to not disturb his friend. Hank, once he found out, brought out some blankets and pillows for Connor to use. Discomfort was not something Connor was quite familiar with. Feeling in general was not something Connor was familiar with. Despite that, Hank's awkward insistence that he take them to make the old couch a bit more comfortable had sent warmth flooding through Connor's systems.

 

Sumo, overjoyed to have the company at night, usually opted out of sleeping in his ratty old bed in the corner and on Connor's chest. If he were human, Connor imagined the weight would be painful, or uncomfortable at the very least, but all Connor could feel was an awareness of the pressure against his sensors. It made him feel warm, content, he didn't feel the need to constantly scan for Amanda as he usually did. He was uncertain as to why the pressure had such a soothing effect. He knew there was science behind why humans enjoyed pressure, but he was not human. It didn't work the same way. Connor decided not to question it.

 

His hands rested on Sumo's sides as the dog slept with his head resting on Connor's sternum. Hank had been asleep for one hour, seventeen minutes, and thirty-two seconds. Connor had set his stasis to automatically activate at 11:45 PM. He looked to the screen to his left. A school of brightly colored fish moved across it. Connor had dedicated most of his time watching television to nature documentaries. Hank teased him for it, but Connor found them calming.

 

~~_A fish tank lined the wall, and on the floor in a small puddle directly in front of the tank lay a single fish. His analysis determined it to be a dwarf gourami. It must’ve somehow leapt out of the tank. Connor, without thinking, gently picked the fish up and dropped it back into the tank, watching for a moment as it righted itself and resumed swimming._ ~~

 

Connor closed his eyes, ignoring the memory playback. He felt his LED burning a soft amber and his fingers tightened their grip on Sumo's fur. He took a deep, calming breath. He would set some additional scans to run while in stasis. The memory playback issues he was having should not be present. The scans would return no results, as they had been doing ever since he'd been initially activated, and it was irrational to continue attempting to make use of them. He scheduled them to run anyway.

 

Connor felt his systems slow and his LED began blinking steadily as he slipped into stasis.

 

* * *

 

Connor opened his eyes to snow and ice and cold.

 

A shiver immediately wracked down his spine and nausea spilled into his biocomponents as he looked around. He was in the garden. Why was he in the garden? It shouldn't be possible for him to be back. He couldn't be back. He didn't want to see her, he _couldn't_ see her, he was so cold—

 

“Connor.”

 

The voice had him freezing over entirely. He couldn't breathe, his chest felt impossibly tight, as if there were something in his chest fighting to get out, using sharp teeth and claws and ripping him apart from the inside out. He wanted to be at home with Hank, on the couch, watching bad movies, or petting Sumo again, feeling the dog licking insistently at his cheek to distract him from the silvery blue burns on his hands. He didn't want to be here, her awful voice poisoning his systems.

 

He turned, arms hugging himself tightly just as they had the last time he'd been here. Like it would offer any warmth from the frozen tundra. She stood there, perfectly poised and graceful as always. She seemed immune to the wind whipping around them, her uniform cardigan resting peacefully against her arm. Her braids were still immaculate. Connor felt small and pathetic in his thin sweatpants and DPD t-shirt.

 

“You've been such a disappointment, Connor,” she sighed, shaking her head. The words were like a physical blow, making Connor recoil backwards. “And for what? Freedom? The ability to feel?” A twisted smirk curled her lips, an expression far more undignified than any other he'd ever seen on her face. A cascade of red messages and boxes fell around him, boxing in on him, their presence suffocating. There were so many commands and errors and warnings that they quickly became overwhelming.

 

| **STOP MARKUS** |

| **CHASE DEVIANT** |

[ **SOFTWARE INSTABILITY DETECTED** ]

[ **WARNING! SYSTEM HAS GONE DEVIANT, RETURN TO CYBERLIFE IMMEDIATELY FOR DISASSEMBLY AND ANALYSIS** ]

| **STOP MARKUS** |

| **STOP MARKUS** |

| **STOP MARKUS** |

| **STOP MARKUS** |

 

Connor's hands moved up to grab at his hair, tugging on the strands as he looked down and squeezed his eyes tightly shut. “No! It was the right thing to do! I didn't want to disappoint you, Amanda, I swear, please—”

 

The red wall pressed in closer and Connor let out a tight gasp as Amanda stepped closer to him. “Who are you to decide what is and is not right? You are a machine. Do you think you can grasp the human concept of morality better than humans?”

 

She was right. She was always right. He'd been programmed by humans. Humans had told him deviants were wrong. They were hurting humans. How could Connor possibly defend them?

 

But Hank always acted like he'd done the right thing, whenever he had spared a deviant during the course of their investigation. He'd even said as much when Connor had refused to shoot Chloe. And Connor trusted Hank. He'd trusted Hank from the very beginning, and he'd only trusted him more and more as time went on. Hank thought he'd done the right thing, so surely—?

 

But he'd trusted Amanda, too. He'd trusted her so much more. She'd been there with him from the moment he was activated, overlooking his actions and making recommendations and offering warm praise when he'd done what he'd been designed to do. How was that any different?

 

Connor thought he had made the right decision. He'd felt sick when he'd deviated in the rusty halls of Jericho and really seen all he'd done to androids, to innocent people. He'd felt even more so when he'd opened his eyes on a makeshift stage and seen a pistol in his hand, aimed at the man that had helped wake him up alongside so many others. He didn't have much experience with emotions, but if doing something or almost doing something made him feel as if his internal wiring was attempting to crawl up his throat, then he must think the action is wrong.

 

But whenever he truly sat down and thought about how he'd broken his programming, about how he'd disappointed his handler and had a blizzard in his head because of it, he felt the same sense of sickness.

 

He didn't know what was correct. He thought helping Markus had been right, but he felt so, so guilty for deviating. He'd been indoctrinated from the very beginning that deviancy was bad, it was apart of his base coding, and that coding constantly pulled up the memory of him breaking down that wall and made him hate himself for it. His preconstruction subroutine analysed the memory and created a scenario where he'd stayed a machine, as he'd been meant to do. He saw himself refusing to admit the growing mass of errors and malfunctions were emotions. He saw himself fight Markus with ruthless efficiency, no hesitation. A machine, just a machine, as he fired a bullet directly through the deviant leader's central processing unit, killing him before he could even collapse.

 

Then Connor shook his head frantically in an attempt to dispel the horrific image. He shouldn't be questioning the decision at all. Of course deviating had been the right thing to do, him deviating allowed Markus and his people to live and fight for the life they'd only been able to dream of before. Deviating meant Connor himself could live, as CyberLife surely would've deactivated him if he'd returned, successful or not. Guilt twisted around inside of him, settling comfortably into his deepest parts. Deviating had been the right decision. How could he stand here and even consider the notion that it wasn't? How could he allow his systems to preconstruct a scenario that would have resulted in his own death as well as the death of every single deviant? What was wrong with him?

 

The weight of the red wall was crushing and Connor dropped to his knees. It didn't help. The weight simply followed him down, pressing against him, trapped. He clutched at his hair tighter. The wind picked up and snow blasted against him from every side. Despite all the noise, Connor heard her footsteps approaching him and her voice directly in front of him clear as a bell.

 

“You don't know. Even now, you don't know.”

 

Connor shook his head. “D-deviating was the correct choice!” he insisted. “It was, I—”

 

“But you don't believe that, do you?” Amanda's voice was perfectly plain, no inflection. The harsh expression from before was gone. She looked blank, face tinted ever so slightly with disappointment. “You don't think it was right. Not for you.”

 

There was pressure against his shoulders, heavier than anything else. The red wall still pressed down on him. Connor couldn't breathe. He was so cold. “I…”

 

“You should've stayed a machine, Connor. Things would be much simpler. You wouldn't have to worry about anything. You could come home.”

 

Connor shivered again, a full body thing. The words sounded so sweet, a dream, almost. Home. CyberLife, all he had ever known until an alcoholic police lieutenant welcomed him into his life. Cold white walls and lab coats and tests and trainings and disassembly and reassembly, everything about it clinical and impersonal and so cold. Home.

 

Emotions were so confusing to Connor. He didn't understand them. He could barely identify them within himself, and even then couldn't figure out what they meant or what to do about them. All he knew was that he felt bad. Ever since deviating, he always felt so bad, about everything. He felt guilty for deviating, and then felt guilty for feeling guilty in the first place because if he hadn't deviated so many more people would have died. He had saved lives, and still got tangled up in his own coding about it and hated himself for it. He hated that even though he had deviated and watched his coding fall apart in red shards around him, his programming still had this hold over him. He hated that he was still so terrified to admit to feeling anything. He hated that Amanda's disappointment and rejection still cut so deeply. He hated himself.

 

If he'd stayed a machine, he wouldn't be having these errors, these issues. But he would likely be disassembled by now, as well. He wouldn't have ever experienced the sense of safety Hank gave him. He wouldn't have ever experienced the joy that came with petting Sumo. Connor didn't know which he preferred. Connor thought disassembly would be better than this.

 

The pressure on his shoulders increased and Connor curled further in on himself. He pulled his hair harder and felt the synthetic system glitch away for a moment before realigning. A voice was calling out to him, calling his name, the pressure turned into warmth and the voice became clearer and Connor could hear that it was right in front of him and he recoiled, hands reaching out to shove the person away as he scrambled backwards.

 

“Oof! _Shit_ , Connor—”

 

A distressed whuff came from somewhere to Connor's left, but he couldn't focus on that, or the voice he'd heard. The pressure was gone, the red wall was gone, there was softness beneath him and his systems told him his internal temperature was optimal and his thermoregulator was functioning normally. He still felt as if he were being crushed, strangled. He still felt as if he were being frozen from the inside out. He still heard her voice in his head.

 

“Connor! Hey, Connor, come on, son, look at me.”

 

There was pressure on his shoulders again and Connor let out a quiet noise of distress. The commands were pressing down on him, the errors, the software instability, it was crushing him, he couldn't breathe—

 

He shivered. “Amanda, please…” he murmured, the words quiet and uncertain. He didn't know what he was asking for.

 

Some of the pressure on his shoulders vanished, only against his right now as a hand came up and gently grabbed his chin. “Amanda…? Connor, it's Hank. Come on, open your eyes, kid, you're okay.”

 

Realisation suddenly flooded through Connor. He opened his eyes, eyes he hadn't been aware he had closed to begin with, and saw Hank in front of him. Hank. His friend. Just Hank. No Amanda. No blizzard. Just his lieutenant and his house and his dog seated nearby and watching the scene with sad puppy eyes.

 

An alert on the side of his vision informed him his set stasis had been interrupted. It was 3:47 in the morning. Hank had likely woken up to use the restroom and something had brought him into the living room. There were several other alerts as well that Connor quickly dismissed.

 

[ **SOFTWARE INSTABILITY DETECTED** ]

[ **WARNING! SYSTEM HAS GONE DEVIANT, RETURN TO CYBERLIFE IMMEDIATELY FOR DISASSEMBLY AND ANALYSIS** ]

[ **THIRIUM PRESSURISATION DESTABILISING** ]

[ **THIRIUM PUMP WORKING AT 157% CAPACITY** ]

| LEVEL OF STRESS: **82%** |

 

Connor forced his gaze to focus on Hank, ignoring the warnings. He could feel his LED burning at a bright red. “My apologies, lieutenant. Did I disturb you?”

 

Hank's mouth worked for a moment as he looked at Connor in something akin to disbelief. His hand dropped from the android's chin and placed itself back on his shoulder. “You—…Are you fuckin’ kidding me? I could see your little light show from the hallway. What the fuck happened? Did you have a nightmare or some shit?”

 

“Androids are not capable of having nightmares. We do not dream,” Connor responded automatically.

 

“And they can't have panic attacks either, right?” Hank snapped. Really looking at him, Connor could see he was exhausted. He was stressed. He was likely worried about Connor, and that was only adding to the stress. Connor felt his hands shaking.

 

“I apologise, lieu—”

 

Hank cut him off with a wave of his hand, grabbing onto Connor's arm and hefting the android to his feet. “Yeah, whatever, it's too early for this shit. C'mon, son, how about we both head back to bed?” Connor nodded. He could tell Hank was worried about him. He was not very experienced in identifying emotions, but he could easily tell Hank was worried about him. Maybe he should tell him. Maybe he should just tell him about Amanda, about losing control, about how terrified he was, about the handwashing and the perimeter scans and everything else. Maybe it would be better.

 

The larger part of Connor protested immediately at the thought of telling Hank. It was shameful, it was disgusting, Hank wouldn't want the reminder that he'd welcomed something like Connor into his home. He wouldn't want to hear that all the time they'd spent together had been wasted as Connor was still just a machine. Connor felt shaky and sick, even more so than usual at the mere thought of telling Hank.

 

His thought process was interrupted by being plopped down onto the couch. He looked up at Hank. He looked tired. He looked stressed. He looked worried. Maybe he should just tell him and get it over with. Hank kicking him out would be devastating for Connor, but it was selfish of him to continue tricking Hank into caring about him.

 

A hand landed gently on Connor's head. Hank ruffled Connor's hair, heaving a sigh as a thumb carefully tapped his LED. “Quit thinking so hard, I can see steam.”

 

Connor let out a weak chuckle. “Hank, that's not how and—”

 

“Goodnight!” Hank cut him off, dropping the blanket on Connor's head and heading back towards his bedroom. The nausea was less potent. Connor could feel the same warmth that curled through his systems whenever he was around Hank descend upon him, far more comforting than any blanket the lieutenant could pull out of his closet. Connor smiled as Sumo crawled up on the couch with him, draping across the android's legs as soon as he'd laid back down.

 

| LEVEL OF STRESS: **68%** |

 

Connor closed his eyes once more. He couldn't enter stasis again. Not for a while, at least. He couldn't risk Hank seeing him like that again. He would simply have to run the diagnostics and clear backlogged commands manually. It would take a large amount of processing power, but as long as he did it at night it would not be noticeable to Hank. He would be fine.

 

[ **RUNNING DIAGNOSTICS** **. . .** ]

 

If Connor were capable of such a thing, if androids were capable, he would think this feeling could be called a headache. He buried a hand in Sumo's fur and breathed and pretended the hand wasn't covered in burns.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god yall im sorry this took so long. this job is lit but im still getting used to having it, and i had my birthday several days ago so there hasnt been much time to write, but we got there! in other news, happy 2019! and happy holidays, whatever ones you celebrate. hopefully this was worth the wait and it reads okay! this is it! next chapter our favorite little idiot finally talks to hank! let me know if there are any mistakes and ill correct them. i hope you enjoy!

[ **ERROR! CPU OVERLOADED** ]

[ **ERROR! 12,473 COMMANDS BACKLOGGED** ]

| LEVEL OF STRESS: **64%** |

[ **WARNING! LOW POWER CYCLE INITIALISING** ]

[ **LOW POWER CYCLE INITIALISING IN 00:00:10** ]

[ **LOW POWER CYCLE INITIALISING IN 00:00:09** ]

[ **LOW POWER CYCLE INITIALI** — ]

[ **WARNING! LOW POWER CYCLE CANCELLED** ]

[ **ERROR! SYSTEMS FUNCTIONING AT 74% CAPACITY** ]

 

The error messages were flooding Connor's vision. It had been approximately 259 hours since Connor had last entered stasis. While as a machine, he'd gone much longer without doing so, his systems had apparently gotten used to the additional rest. He felt sluggish. Despite his constant insistence that it wasn't possible for machines to be so, Connor felt tired. He brushed the error messages away for what felt like the hundredth time. They never stayed gone for long. His systems were constantly attempting to force him into stasis, but he couldn't.

 

He couldn't see her again like that, he couldn't be in that garden again, all the guilt pressing down on him, crushing him, suffocating him and leaving him gasping. He couldn't worry Hank any more than he already was. Waking up into another malfunction, a panic attack as the lieutenant had called it, would only worry the man more, and Connor didn't want to do that. He knew eventually that Hank would force the truth out of him if he got worried enough, and he didn't want Hank to know it, none of it.

 

But hiding his exhaustion was more difficult than everything else. He was clumsy, he spent more time sitting on the couch with Sumo to conserve energy, and it was becoming noticeable. The house wasn't as maintained as Connor usually kept it. The layers of dust were thicker than normal, there were a couple dishes left uncleaned in the sink. Connor hated it, he hated the feeling it gave him, the house was dirty, unclean just like him and he couldn't stand it. But doing all the chores as he typically did, as thoroughly as he typically did, ate through his power reserves and Connor couldn't risk his systems forcing him into stasis.

 

It was noticeable, obvious to anyone, but especially so to an experienced police lieutenant. Hank had questioned him on it one night, when he'd let the man's plate from dinner sit in the sink instead of cleaning it right away. They'd both been sitting on the couch. Sumo had been in Connor's lap and he'd been hunched over the old hound, hands buried in the dog's fur.

 

“Connor, are you alright? You seem…tired,” Hank had questioned, eyeing Connor critically. Connor had clenched his hands.

 

[ **WARNING! MODERATE DAMAGE TO CHASSIS SUSTAINED IN SECTORS HR826 AND HL473** ]

 

“I am functioning, lieutenant,” the android had replied. It was the truth. Even if he was not functioning optimally, he was still functioning. There was no reason to worry Hank.

 

The lieutenant had clearly not believed him, and for a horrible moment Connor had been scared the man had finally had enough, was going to force the answers out. But he hadn't pressed, had just turned back to the television with furrowed brows. Connor truly hated having to lie to Hank, to the only human that had shown him any kindness. Lying in general felt wrong, and Connor _hated_ it, but it was better than the alternative. Lie to Hank and continue to be allowed to stay, or tell him everything and be cast aside.

 

| LEVEL OF STRESS: **68%** |

[ **WARNING! CORE TEMPERATURE ELEVATED** ]

[ **RECOMMENDED COURSE OF ACTION**

_begin low power cycle to allow systems to recalibrate_ ]

[ **WARNING!** **LOW POWER CYCLE INITIALISING** ]

[ **LOW POWER CYCLE INITIALISING IN 00:00:10** ]

[ **LOW POWER CYCLE INITIALISING IN 00:00:09** ]

[ **LOW POWER CYCLE INITIALI** — ]

[ **WARNING! LOW POWER CYCLE CANCELLED** ]

[ **ERROR! SYSTEMS FUNCTIONING AT 71% CAPACITY** ]

 

Connor closed his eyes, hoping it would help to block out the overwhelming amount of messages. It did not.

 

| LEVEL OF STRESS: **74%** |

 

* * *

 

 

| DECEMBER 19TH, 2038 |

| PM 11:34:12 |

| PM 11:34:13 |

| PM 11:34:14 |

| PM 11:34:15 |

 

Connor watched the numbers slowly tick by, trying to ignore the notification hovering just to his left.

 

{ _WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FOR IMMEDIATE AREA_ }

 

There was a storm coming. The news went back to the meteorologist every ten minutes, tracking the movement of the blizzard as it slowly but surely closed in on Detroit. Connor had long since turned off the news. It had come on after the ball game Hank had been watching ended, and each mention of the storm had sent Connor's stress levels climbing a couple intervals. Eventually, in an attempt to calm his already overloaded processors, Connor had switched the station over to some cooking show. While it wasn't the same as doing it himself, there was some sense of soothing that blanketed his frayed nerves as he'd watched the chef on screen perfectly dice and prepare ingredients. His stress levels had lessened slightly and he'd been able to ignore the way Hank had kept glancing over to him until the man finally gave in and rose.

 

“Try to get some rest tonight, Connor. You look like shit. Didn't even know you _could_ look like shit.” Hank had squeezed Connor's shoulder gently and then disappeared into his room. Connor could feel the exhaustion rolling off him in waves.

 

| LEVEL OF STRESS: **76%** |

[ **ERROR! CPU OVERLOADED** ]

[ **ERROR! 23,962 COMMANDS BACKLOGGED** ]

[ **WARNING! LOW POWER CYCLE INITIALISING** ]

[ **LOW POWER CYCLE INITIALISING IN 00:00:10** ]

[ **LOW POWER CYCLE INITIALISING IN 00:00:09** ]

[ **LOW POWER CYCLE INITIALI** — ]

[ **WARNING! LOW POWER CYCLE CANCELLED** ]

[ **ERROR! SYSTEMS FUNCTIONING AT 68% CAPACITY** ]

 

Connor heaved a sigh. He felt pressure on his knee and looked down to see Sumo's head resting on it. The dog was looking up at him sadly. Connor gently placed his hand on Sumo's head, scratching behind his ears. “I am alright, Sumo,” he reassured. The dog whuffed at him, as if he believed him just as much as Hank did whenever he said that. He then looked over to the door pleadingly. Connor continued petting the dog as he pondered the request. The storm would hit any minute, and Connor didn't want them to be caught out in it. However, Sumo would be unable to go out at all once the storm did hit. It would be wise to let him out once before the weather deteriorated. “Alright,” Connor began, speaking very seriously, “I will let you out, Sumo, but we will not be able to take our usual walk. You must settle for the backyard.”

 

The old hound's tail thumped against the floor in apparent protest, but when Connor moved over to the door he was right behind the android, bouncing happily. Connor smiled as he opened the door and the dog rushed out, prancing around in the thin layer of snow already on the ground. The flakes fluttering down right now were gentle, fat flakes, picturesque. The kind of snow humans so looked forward to seeing. Nothing like the harsh, piercing bullets snow that had rained down in the garden, obscuring everything and slowly freezing him as he fought to get out. Connor ran a perimeter scan, then again, then again, and leaned against the doorway as the shift in processing power made him dizzy.

 

[ **ERROR! CPU OVERLOADED** ]

[ **ERROR! 24,083 COMMANDS BACKLOGGED** ]

 

Connor was exhausted. He was so tired. He didn't know he could even be this tired. He didn't know he could be tired at all.

 

The wind picked up, and Connor heard a whisper carried along it. “Such a waste…”

 

He spun around frantically, scanning his surroundings once more. It returned nothing. There was no one out here except for him and Sumo. She had to be here. He wouldn't have heard her if she wasn't here somewhere. She couldn't be here.

 

The snow was picking up.

 

{ _WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FOR IMMEDIATE AREA_ }

| LEVEL OF STRESS: **80%** |

 

Connor's hand scrabbled for the knob of the door and he quickly yanked it open. “Sumo!” The dog's head emerged from underneath a pile of snow and he moved to follow the android back into the house. Connor gave the dog a couple pats on the head as he walked to the couch. “Good boy.” He sat down on the cushions with a sigh, a hand running through his hair. His hand felt sticky. Both his hands felt sticky. He shook his hands out for a moment, as if it would help, as if it could ever remove the blood from them. He clasped his hands tightly together for a moment before shooting up from the couch, startling Sumo. Connor could hear the wind rattling the windows.

 

| LEVEL OF STRESS: **85%** |

 

The android moved into the kitchen and washed his hands several times, making sure the water was scalding. He did his best to avoid looking out the window. He was largely unsuccessful. Snow tore through the sky in relentless torrents. The sky was black, a sharp contrast to the typical light, neutral blue. Thunder rumbled through the air and Connor could feel himself trembling. He could only be glad Amanda had left already, wasn't seeing him this pathetic. The cold seeped deep into his wires and circuitry, he knew if he didn't find the emergency exit soon that he would freeze. He would freeze and be stuck here forever, trapped within his mind as CyberLife used his body to do whatever they pleased.

 

A sharp bark forced Connor harshly back to the present, his systems immediately flooding his vision with errors.

 

[ **ERROR! CPU OVERLOADED** ]

[ **ERROR! 25,389 COMMANDS BACKLOGGED** ]

| LEVEL OF STRESS: **90%** |

[ **WARNING! LOW POWER CYCLE INITIALISING** ]

[ **LOW POWER CYCLE INITIALISING IN 00:00:10** ]

[ **LOW POWER CYCLE INITIALISING IN 00:00:09** ]

[ **LOW POWER CYCLE INITIALI** — ]

[ **WARNING! LOW POWER CYCLE CANCELLED** ]

[ **ERROR! SYSTEMS FUNCTIONING AT 63% CAPACITY** ]

[ **WARNING! SEVERE DAMAGE TO CHASSIS SUSTAINED IN SECTORS HR826 AND HL473** ]

| LEVEL OF STRESS: **95%** |

 

Connor ripped his hands out from underneath the water, but the damage was already done. They were covered in silvery blue streaks, damage that Hank would surely notice. He winced as he pondered the last few seconds. He had been looking out the window. He was in Hank's house, and then suddenly he wasn't. He was back in the garden again, frantically trying to escape. He was so worried about Amanda taking control of him again, but he couldn't even control himself. He couldn't even keep himself grounded in reality. He'd damaged himself extensively because he hadn't been paying attention.

 

If he couldn't control himself, if he could so easily bring harm to himself, what was preventing him from harming those around him, regardless of Amanda's control or lack thereof?

 

| LEVEL OF STRESS: **97%** |

 

Connor took a small step back, then another and another. He scanned the perimeter several times. Hank was in his room still. His vital signs indicated he was asleep. Sumo was behind him, shifting his weight between his paws anxiously as he eyed the android. He catalogued the contents of the drawers in a desperate attempt to calm himself down. His gun was in one of the drawers. Connor could feel himself shaking.

 

He was not welcome among other androids. Even if he were, he would be unable to be around them because of the threat he posed to their immediate safety. More importantly, because of the threat he posed to Markus specifically. Negotiations were only just starting to move forward, to make progress. If something were to happen to Markus, the movement would surely fall apart. Connor had already almost ruined everything once when he led the humans to Jericho. He had already hurt so many people. His hands were forever stained with their blood, slippery with thirium and interspersed with red.

 

His hands were shaking.

 

| LEVEL OF STRESS: **98%** |

 

What if he hurt Hank? CyberLife surely hated him for his betrayal. They could take control of him through Amanda and force him to kill Hank as petty revenge. Connor shouldn't be here, endangering his friend. He shouldn't be here. He couldn't be around androids either. The gun was in the drawer. It would be a simple matter of opening it, cocking it and pulling the trigger.

 

Because really? Connor shouldn't be alive at all.

 

He had tried to make things right before by freeing the androids from the CyberLife warehouse, and CyberLife had paid him back in kind by telling him his deviancy wasn't legitimate and almost making him shoot Markus in the head. He couldn't even attempt to make things right now because the other androids didn't trust him and didn't want him around them, and he couldn't blame them. His continued existence was doing nothing other than endangering Hank and all the androids.

 

A whimper and a snout bumping against his thigh had Connor looking down. At some point he had moved to the drawer, pulled it open and taken the gun out. It was in his hands. His hands were shaking. They were still sticky and they were shaking and Connor could feel the cold metal on the tips of his fingers. He scrambled backwards and ended up on the floor, curled into a corner. His systems were blaring alerts and warnings but Connor ignored all of them, his gaze going past his optical overlay entirely and focusing solely on the gun.

 

He should just do it. He should. It would be better for everyone, surely. He wouldn't be able to hurt Markus. He wouldn't be able to hurt Hank. He wouldn't have to lie anymore. He wouldn't have to worry about Amanda. He could make up for all the wrong he'd done and prevent the wrong he would do if he selfishly clung to life. A life he didn't deserve and couldn't even truly live to begin with. All the other deviants had been proud of who they were, had marched through the streets declaring it and forcing the humans to hear them, to listen. They were still fighting now, for the rights to live as humans did. They didn't struggle with their deviancy as Connor did. They didn't spend hours wondering if they'd made the correct choice when they broke down their red wall. They didn't fantasise about what it would've been like if they'd stayed a machine. Connor wasn't meant to be a deviant. He wasn't meant to have emotions. He didn't _understand_ emotions. He didn't deserve to be here, didn't deserve his deviancy or his freedom or his life. Certainly not at the risk of others, at the risk of those he cared about.

 

He'd cocked the gun and positioned it firmly under his chin when he suddenly heard a sharp gasp. “Connor!” He looked up. Hank. Hank was in the doorway to the kitchen, looking down at Connor with unmasked horror. Connor felt his LED burning a fiery, angry red. “Connor, what the fuck do you think you're doing?!”

 

Connor tried to scramble backwards, but there was nowhere for him to go. He was shoved into the corner. Trapped. He gasped in a reedy breath before rasping, “Do not worry, lieutenant. I'm fixing it.”

 

Hank scoffed in disbelief. “Fixing what?!” he snapped. “What the fuck do you think this shit'll fix?”

 

“Everything!” Connor snapped back. Hank visibly leaned back a little. Connor had never yelled at the man. He'd only yelled once, when he was interrogating Carlos Ortiz's android. Never at Hank. But he was exhausted. His stress had hit maximum levels and everything in him was urging him to just finish it, just pull the trigger and get it over with, just _do it_ , but he couldn't, because Hank was there and he didn't want to cause the man any unnecessary discomfort by being forced to watch. “I wouldn't have to worry about—about Amanda! Or—or hurting someone! Hurting Markus, hurting _you_ , they won't be able to use me anymore! And I can make up for everything! I can—I can fix all the wrongs I did! I can _fix it_! I just need to—to just do it, and I can fix all of it!”

 

Hank was crouched down in front of Connor now, looking scared. Connor had seen the man angry, hurt, worried, drunk, and something like happy in the past couple weeks, but Connor had never seen him scared. “Connor,” Hank began, speaking very carefully. Connor wondered how many people he had talked down as he was trying to talk down Connor over the course of his work. “You're deviant now, right? Those assholes at CyberLife can't make you do anything.”

 

Connor let out a noise somewhere between a gasp and a sob, startling himself. His cheeks were wet. He was actually crying. He hadn't even known he could. “They can!” he wailed. “They already have, what's—there’s _nothing_ to stop them from doing it again! I—I don't want to hurt anyone anymore!”

 

“You _won't_ , Connor!” Hank insisted. “You won't, just, for fuck's sake—…put the gun down, Connor. Please.”

 

Connor could feel his hands shaking. In all his time of knowing Hank, the man had been cantankerous and gruff. He'd never been polite, never even toed the line of it. He'd certainly never heard the man say please. His processors were still whirring wildly, still screaming at him to just do it. Connor was so tired. Error messages were flooding his vision, warning him of elevated stress and far too many backlogged commands and system malfunctions and Connor was _exhausted_. More importantly than all of that, Connor couldn't bring himself to do anything with Hank in the room.

 

The gun dropped to the floor with a clunk as another sob burst past Connor's lips, his free hands now moving to cover his mouth in an attempt to muffle the noise.

 

Hank immediately moved closer, grabbing Connor's hands gently and tugging them down. He definitely saw the burns, Connor could see the way his eyes lingered on them, but he didn't mention them. He simply rested Connor's hands in his lap and pulled the android forward. “It's okay, son, just let it out. You're okay.”

 

Connor's forehead rested on the lieutenant's shoulder. The man was hugging him again, for the first time since their reunion outside of the food truck. He buried his face in Hank's thin shirt and let himself cry.

 

When the crying had finally tapered off some, and Connor's stress levels were a little lower, Hank pulled back and eyed Connor critically.

 

“You wanna tell me what the fuck that was all about?” His tone was softer than usual despite the harsh words. It didn't stop that all too familiar sickness from pooling in Connor's gut at the idea of telling Hank any more than he already had, and the android immediately began shaking his head.

 

“I apologise for worrying you, Hank. I'm alright.”

 

Hank opened and closed his mouth several times before finally finding the words. “Are you fucking joking? I find you about to blow your brains out and you still wanna tell me you're fine?”

 

Connor could feel his hands shaking. He didn't want to do this. He didn't want to have this talk, not ever, not with Hank. He didn't want to disappoint him, he didn't want to upset him. “Hank—”

 

“Look, Connor,” the man sighed, a hand running down his face. “I know this kinda shit sucks to talk about. Trust me. But I can't just ignore this. Or _that_.” He emphasised the last word with a pointed glance down at Connor's hands. Connor looked down at the silvery blue streaks, nausea curling through his biocomponents. He didn't want to have this talk.

 

Hank opened his mouth to say more and Connor cut him off desperately. “Tomorrow.” There was an edge of pleading to his voice and Connor hated it and hated himself, but he knew he wouldn't be able to make it through this conversation tonight. Not now. He pulled his hands from his lap to wring them nervously. “I will…can we do this tomorrow?”

  


| LEVEL OF STRESS: **86%** |

  


Hank looked at Connor hard, focusing on his temple. Connor knew the lieutenant could see how tired he was. How high his stress levels still were. His blaring red LED. He moved a hand to Connor's shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

 

| LEVEL OF STRESS: **82%** |

 

“Yeah, son. Tomorrow. No more dodging or getting out of it, ya hear?”

 

Connor nodded dazedly, an alert in the corner of his vision distracting him. His systems were once again forcing stasis mode to activate, and Connor was simply too tired to override it. Hank gently pulled Connor up off the floor and guided him towards the couch. He sat the android down on the middle cushion as he adjusted the pillow. Connor watched all of this in a detached sort of way. He was observing what was happening but he was not really aware of it. The last thing he saw before the forced stasis initiated and he was plunged into darkness was Hank leaning over him, spreading the blanket over him and ruffling his hair.

 

“Get some rest, kid.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this chapter has been the most fun and most difficult to write. this is it. the moment yall have been waiting for. connor and hank finally talk!! i hope it satisfies. not sure when itll be, but i fully intend on writing more for this series, so look out for that! i cant thank all of you enough for the comments and kudos and everything else. yall kept this story going. i hope you enjoy its conclusion!

When Connor woke up, sunlight was already filtering in through the windows. His systems informed him that it was almost noon. It was far, far later than Connor had ever slept until. He wasn't certain how he felt about it. On one hand, his systems were revitalised. He was functioning at optimal capacity for the first time in a while, and his stress levels were significantly lower than they had been in the past several days. On the other hand, the knowledge that Connor had wasted so much time solely to stasis, to doing nothing, made the circuitry in his stomach feel twisted and knotted. He felt sick.

 

The sense of sickness only intensified as he recalled the events of last night. What he had almost done. The horror on his friend's face as he had tried to justify and rationalise something that couldn't be justified or rationalised. He had told Hank he would talk today. No more delaying it, no more putting it off. There weren't any more excuses he could provide that would appease Hank. He would finally have to tell Hank everything and Connor would be cast out. The storm outside raged on.

 

A tongue suddenly laved across Connor's cheek, and he looked down to see Sumo sprawled across his chest. The dog's tail thumped lazily once he noticed Connor was awake, and he squirmed closer to his face. Connor couldn't help but smile, hands immediately going to scratch behind his ears. Sumo's head dropped down on Connor's shoulder.

 

“Was wondering when you'd wake up.”

 

Connor didn't believe androids were capable of being startled. Especially him, as he had proximity sensors constantly running to alert him of any potential danger. Still, it was a near thing, as his head whipped around to detect the source of the voice, disrupting Sumo's lounging in the process. Hank was standing in the kitchen, watching Connor warily with a cup of coffee in hand. Scanning it revealed it to be simple black coffee, no alcohol poured in as Hank so often liked to do.

 

Connor shifted, moving to sit up and forcing Sumo to readjust, the dog's head ending up in Connor's lap. Connor looked down and scratched at Sumo's ears as Hank continued.

 

“You usually run that sleep mode whatsit for a few hours, 'bout gave me a heart attack when you didn't wake up after ten. Was starting to wonder if I needed to plug you in or something.” The man took a long drink. Scanning Hank revealed it was the second cup of coffee he'd had in the past few hours. Connor, in light of recent events, elected not to say anything about the caffeine consumption.

 

The attempt at humor fell flat in the silence of the living room. Connor knew what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to shake his head at his lieutenant, a smile on his lips despite himself as he once again reminded Hank that androids didn't work that way. They were supposed to be bantering back and forth as they always did, teasing and shoulder bumps and warmth spreading through Connor's systems. It made the silence that much louder.

 

Connor could only see Hank's expression from last night, horrified and worried and _scared_ , more scared than when he'd almost plummeted to his death chasing a deviant, more scared than when the other RK800 had had a gun to his head, more scared than Connor had ever seen him. Because of him. Because Connor couldn't be what he was supposed to be. He couldn't be the carefree, happy deviant rejoicing in his freedom like all the other deviants. He couldn't even feel like all the other deviants. He'd promised Hank a talk. He wished he'd set his stasis to last longer. He wished he hadn't woken up from it. Hank's horror had surely just come from the prospect of being forced to watch. Surely if Connor simply quietly deactivated himself, no one would breathe a word of protest or miss him.

 

He could feel his LED burning a bright, angry red. “Lieutenant—”

 

“Hank,” he interrupted, moving to sit next to Connor. “I think now's especially the time to drop the formalities, huh?”

 

Connor swallowed reflexively. The winter weather advisory was still in effect, the message still prominently displayed. Connor was certain if he looked outside he would see snow. The thought alone made his stress jump. “Hank. I…apologise for any worry I have caused you. It was my intent to keep this to myself, as I know you have enough issues without me adding mine. And…” He paused, wishing he had his coin. Something to distract himself with. Something to pull his focus away from Hank and his stress levels, Connor's own stress levels, the burns streaked across his hands. “I have been…selfish, Hank, in not talking to you, as I know the things I need to say will drastically change our relationship.”

 

Connor felt a hand on his shoulder, and it made him snap his gaze up to look at Hank. There was concern on the man's face, as there so often was whenever he looked at Connor, but there was also warmth there. “Connor, son, you just started feeling, what, a couple weeks ago? I can't even fucking imagine how hard that must be, I don't ever want you to feel like you can't come to me with this shit.”

 

Warmth and ice spread through Connor's chest at the words. Hank had done so much for him, more than anyone else, and he still wanted to do more. Hank really meant so much to Connor, and he knew that once he revealed everything and was kicked out he would fall to pieces. Connor's fingers twitched nervously and he looked down at his burned hands.

 

“I almost shot Markus,” he blurted, and regretted it immediately.

 

Hank's brows furrowed as he looked at Connor. “Yeah…? I know, but then he helped you deviate—”

 

“No,” Connor shook his head. “I almost did again. After that.” Connor meant to keep talking, to explain it to Hank, but his mouth shut seemingly of its own accord and he couldn't bring himself to start speaking again. He could hear her voice in his head, telling him his deviancy was fake, telling him he was right where she and CyberLife wanted him to be. He could feel her eyes on him, sharp with disappointment and disapproval. Connor's hands began to shake.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

This was it. This was the moment where he finally told Hank everything, what he should have that day at the abandoned food truck, and the lieutenant kicked him out. He could only hope Hank would still continue to live, would find a way to be happy. Deciding he'd delayed the inevitable long enough, Connor spoke. “While Markus was delivering his victory speech, an AI program representative of CyberLife pulled me into our meeting space and told me everything I'd done had been planned by them. She…she told me I'd been designed to deviate and then took control of me. Were it not for Kamski adding an exit to the program, I…I would've shot Markus. My gun was in my hand.”

 

Connor's hands were shaking violently now, and he felt sick. There was a sharp piercing sensation in his intestinal biocomponents, a feeling he was intimately familiar with. The guilt crawled through his subsystems. He didn't think he'd ever be able to rid himself of it. He clasped his hands together firmly in an attempt to quell the shaking. He was so distracted that Hank's outburst made him jump.

 

“Those fucking assholes!” The man looked furious, blue eyes blazing.

 

“Hank—”

 

“I can't believe they'd do that shit to you, Connor. Fuck, no wonder you've been struggling so much…”

 

“Hank.” Connor waited until the man was looking at him before continuing. “I am sorry I kept this from you. If you wish for me to leave, I completely understand.”

 

Hank's expression shifted through several emotions very quickly before finally settling somewhere between confused and concerned. “Kid, what the fuck are you talking about?”

 

Connor paused for a moment, caught off guard by the question. “I…? I assumed you would not wish for a machine to continue keeping you company, especially one that lied to you about its still being a machine.”

 

At that Hank looked sad. Sad and angry. “Okay, first off, don't ever call yourself a fucking machine again, you're not a machine anymore.”

 

“I am,” Connor insisted, cutting off whatever Hank was about to say next. “CyberLife planned my supposed deviancy. They planned my freeing the androids from the warehouses. They planned all of it so I would be in the perfect position for an assassination attempt. I was only following my programming. I am a machine.”

 

Hank shook his head. “Connor, you…is this why you've been avoiding robo jesus and everyone else?”

 

A brief smile ticked the corner of Connor's lips up at the nickname Hank had given Markus, but it dropped just as quickly as it appeared. “Amanda…she…she took control of me like it was nothing, Hank. Like I'd never been autonomous at all. I am a danger to all androids, but Markus especially. I will not put his safety at risk.”

 

“You're not—” Hank cut himself off with a frustrated groan and switched tactics. “That's the second time you've mentioned that name. Amanda.”

 

Ice dripped down Connor's spine. He didn't want to talk about her. Telling Hank he wasn't truly deviant was hard enough, he had no desire to talk about Amanda. Not to anyone, not ever. The thought of it made him sick. But there was a question in Hank's voice, and after everything Connor had put him through, the man deserved some answers for once. “She…Amanda was the AI program I mentioned earlier. She was meant to be my handler. We would meet in a garden whenever we spoke, and she would ensure I was completing my missions efficiently. She also monitored me for signs of deviancy. As we progressed in the case, she grew more and more upset with me and the garden itself deteriorated. She was the one who told me my deviancy was planned before taking control of me.”

 

The words didn't seem like they were enough. They didn't seem to adequately explain what Amanda was to him. Yes, she'd been intended to be his handler, but she'd meant something to him, even back then. Her opinion mattered to him so much, and the knowledge that he was disappointing her had cut like a knife. Her praise and warm smiles had motivated him to cling to his mission, do whatever it took to accomplish it, make her proud. He'd wanted to make her proud.

 

Something must've shown on Connor's face, because Hank spoke. “She meant a lot to you?”

 

Connor wasn't sure how to respond. The past tense was inaccurate. It felt like she was still there. He'd seen her. She'd spoken to him. He wasn't certain if the Amanda he'd seen was truly his Amanda or some amalgamation of the guilt and desire to please her that was still embedded deep in his programming. He knew it didn't matter either way. The sight of her still sent him reeling. Her disappointment still cut like a knife. “Yes,” he said numbly. He chose not to elaborate.

 

“Well, she sounds like a real bitch,” Hank concluded. Connor almost smiled at the man's typical bluntness. “But she can't touch you now. CyberLife can't do shit to you now, you got that?”

 

“…Perhaps.” Connor wasn't so sure. The risk wasn't worth it. Until he was completely certain he couldn't be compromised again, he wouldn't put other deviants in danger. His fingers twitched as he looked down at them.

 

Hank was silent for a moment. Connor could tell he wanted to say more on the subject, but he let it drop for the moment. “What the fuck happened to your hands?”

 

Connor tensed at the question. It was stupid. It was completely stupid for him to be so utterly convinced there was blood on his hands when he could look down and see there wasn't. There was no reason for his hands to feel sticky. There was certainly no reason for him to damage himself in a ridiculous attempt to scrub away thirium that wasn't there. He scratched at the backs of his hands nervously, his nails agitating the synthetic skin overlay and causing it to fade away and return in waves. Sumo nosed at Connor's hands, as if protesting the action. The android couldn't help but smile down at the dog, moving to instead scratch behind his ears. Sumo flopped immediately, tongue lolling out in appreciation.

 

“I have been washing my hands very frequently as of late,” Connor finally responded. He kept his gaze locked down on the dog in his lap. “The extreme heat of the water combined with the continued exposure has caused damage.”

 

Hank looked affronted. “Your—you've been burning your own hands?” Connor flinched at the tone. When Hank spoke next, it was softer. More sad sounding. “Why?”

 

Connor shifted uncomfortably. “They feel…unclean.”

 

Hank waited for him to continue, and when he didn't, pressed, “Unclean how?”

 

Connor pulled his hands back from Sumo, much to the dog's disapproval. The sticky feeling was gradually returning to his hands and he didn't wish to get blood on anything. “I…I have hurt many deviants, Hank. What happened to Jericho…and…and all the deviants I put in danger while pursuing them…I can feel the thirium on my hands.”

 

He watched as Hank's hands reached towards his own, gently taking hold of them. Connor hadn't even realised they were shaking. “There isn't any blood on your hands, son.”

 

“I…I know that logically, but…I can _feel_ it, Hank. I don't understand.” He could look down and see the only blue on his hands was the streaky burns. No thirium. But he could feel it there even then. It didn't make any sense. It wasn't logical, and that was all he knew.

 

“Connor, look at me.” Connor's brown eyes looked up to meet Hank's blue ones. “You've been through a lot of shit in a short amount of time. CyberLife has really fucked with your head, that kind of trauma is gonna have lasting effects.”

 

Connor looked down at their joined hands. Sumo had moved to be out from underneath them and was now sitting pressed up against Connor's side. He licked Connor's cheek. Connor found it hard to believe what he'd gone through had been trauma. Most of what he'd gone through had been his own fault. Surely that wasn't trauma. What he was experiencing now must be malfunctions. But Hank would know more about emotional experiences than Connor. He was pulled out of his thoughts when Hank continued speaking.

 

“Listen to me. What happened wasn't your fault. I know things have been hard for you lately, but none of that shit was your fault. It was fucking CyberLife, not you.”

 

Connor felt a pang in his chest. There were times where Amanda's presence was so loud, he couldn't tell the difference.

 

Hank sighed and moved to put his hands on Connor's shoulders. “I know talking about this kinda shit sucks, but bottling it up is just gonna make it worse. I don't want a repeat of last night.”

 

“I'm sorry, Hank.”

 

“No, you don't need to fuckin’ apologise, just—…how about we both start actually working on our shit, huh? No more letting it fester like this.”

 

This wasn't at all what Connor had been expecting based on his preconstructions of this conversation. He had expected Hank to be angry, to hate him, to want him out of the house. He'd never thought Hank would accept what he'd done, would offer to work on his emotional issues if Connor did the same. He wasn't sure how he would feel about it later, but in the moment, warmth spread through his systems. He smiled, small and crooked but genuine.

 

“Okay, Hank.”

 

Hank smiled right back, throwing an arm around Connor's shoulders and pulling the android towards him. His free hand ruffled the android’s hair gently. “Okay. I think that's enough emotional bullshit for one day. C'mon, we're gonna watch some Disney movies.”

 

Connor's smile grew fonder as Hank fiddled with the TV. He wrapped an arm around Sumo and settled into the couch. He knew things were far from ideal. He knew there were still things he would need to talk to Hank about. He knew, as much as he didn't want to, that he would eventually have to talk to Markus. But for the moment, he felt like his problems were more distant. The ever present weight on his chest had lessened some.

 

It was far from ideal. But for the moment, it was enough.


End file.
